Ezekiel 38:8-14 “After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely. … (11) You will say, 'I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates'-- (12) to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited, and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell in the midst of the land. (13) Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, 'Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?' “‘(14) “Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, 'thus says the Lord God: "On that day when My people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it?”
Although the saints will rule over all the earth during our Lord’s millennial reign, they will not be living all over the earth. So what do I mean by that statement? The above quoted passage of scripture describes an event that will take place at the end of the Lord’s millennial reign, i.e. the rebellion of Gog and Magog against the Lord’s saints. We will discuss this event in more detail in a later section. Nevertheless, the point that I wanted to highlight from this passage is that we see that the saints will be living in one geographic location during that time, for this passage speaks of “a land of unwalled villages”. We know that the Lord Jesus will reign from the city of Jerusalem, and we have already mentioned that approximately 7.6 million saints will be living in the city. And so very clearly the rest of the Lord’s 250 million saints will be living in proximity to the city, i.e. Jerusalem will be located in the centre of the region occupied by the saints. We have also stated earlier that the saints will have approximately 1.1 billion servants to look after their farms, etc. Clearly we can see that in order to accommodate a population of that size, the geographic area that will be occupied by the church will be substantial. Using the same formula that we worked with earlier to determine how the earth will function as an agricultural society in the millennium, we can estimate that the geographic area that will be required to accommodate the saints and their servants would be approximately 12 million square kilometres. And so we can see that the saints will be located in the region of the earth which is known as the Middle East. There are a number of reasons why we can say that. Firstly, the combined geographic area of the nations of the Middle East is approximately 12.5 million square kilometres. Secondly, the city of Jerusalem is located in the central point of that geographic area. Thirdly, the armies of the Middle East nations would have been destroyed at Armageddon and their populations would have become the church’s servants and their farmlands, etc, given to the saints. The list of nations of the Middle East are as follows; Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, Yemen, Oman, Egypt, Sudan and Libya. Someone said, but most of the lands in those nations are desert areas. As we will see in a later section, that will not be a problem, because during the Lord’s millennial reign the land that the saints occupy will become extremely fertile because of the Lord’s blessing.
Revelation 20:7-9 “Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison (8) and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. (9) They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture the apostle John speaks about the same battle of Gog and Magog that the prophet Ezekiel mentioned in the previous passage. The point that I wanted to highlight from this passage is that John tells us in this passage that the armies of Gog and Magog will surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city. The reason why their armies will surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city is because the saints will be living in one geographic area, i.e. the Middle East with Jerusalem located at its centre.
Isaiah 18:1-7 “Woe to the land shadowed with buzzing wings, Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, (2) Which sends ambassadors by sea, Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying, "Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin, To a people terrible from their beginning onward, A nation powerful and treading down, Whose land the rivers divide." (3) All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth: When He lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it; and when He blows a trumpet, you hear it. (4) For so the Lord said to me, "I will take My rest, And I will look from My dwelling place Like clear heat in sunshine, Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." … (7) In that time a present will be brought to the Lord of hosts to a people tall and smooth of skin, and to a people terrible from their beginning onward, A nation powerful and treading down, whose land the rivers divide-- To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, To Mount Zion.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture the prophet Isaiah confirms the fact that the saints will be residing in one geographic location during the Lord’s millennial reign, for he speaks about ambassadors of the various nations of the earth going up to a nation tall and smooth of skin, to a people terrible from their beginning onward, to a nation powerful and treading down. The nation that Isaiah describes in this passage as being tall and smooth of skin, a people terrible from their beginning onward, a nation powerful and treading down, is referring to the Lord’s saints. It is interesting to note in this passage that Isaiah speaks of the saints whose land the rivers divide. So what does that statement mean? You will recall that the river of life flowing from the Lord’s throne will flow to both the Mediterranean and Red seas, thus effectively dividing the land of Israel in two, i.e. whose land the rivers divide. And so we see that all of the scriptures discussed in this section confirm the truth that the saints will be living in one geographic area during the Lord’s millennial reign, and that area will be the Middle East.
Michael E.B. Maher
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